The BIM Manager's Handbook, Part 5

Day-to-Day BIM Management

Dominik Holzer

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781118987872
• eBook ISBN: 9781118987919
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Architecture Design
• Index: Technology & Engineering

ePart 5: Day-to-Day BIM Management: How do you go about mastering hands-on support BIM for your team? ePart 5 introduces the operational tasks a BIM Manager is expected to accomplish. Depending on an organisation's size BIM Managers either supervise the rollout of BIM on various projects, or they actively get involved in mentoring those authoring or coordinating information in BIM.  By providing a strong project focus, this ePart, firstly, addresses requirements for in-house BIM project support; secondly, it explains how to support the integration and coordination of BIM data across a multi-disciplinary project team. Leading BIM experts from the US, UK and Australia divulge their recipes for successful operational management. Obook ISBN: 9781118987902; ePub ISBN:9781118987919; ePDF ISBN: 9781118987926; published November 2015

DAY-TO-DAY BIM MANAGEMENT

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BIM Management is a highly interactive process with a great variety of different tasks to be accomplished on a daily basis. This ePart reviews these day-to-day activities and explains how BIM Managers master them most efficiently. It looks at in-house requirements, as well as the necessity for integration and coordination of BIM data across a multidisciplinary project team. It highlights how interpersonal and communication skills, as well as the ability to formulate concise business plans, are fundamental to a BIM Manager's role. Whether they get applied during mentoring of other staff or during large project coordination meetings, the BIM Manager needs to be articulate in expressing his or her expert view clearly and effectively. In the long term, moreover, it emphasizes how BIM Managers need to establish a culture of dialogue and, to a degree, peer-to-peer support with the goal of disseminating BIM knowledge across their entire organization (and beyond).

Figure 5-1 University of Nottingham Technology Entrepreneurship Centre (TEC), Nottingham, UK.

Copyright © Bond Bryan Architects LTD

Most BIM Managers will empathize with the following scenario: Arriving first thing in the morning at their desk for the day, they put together a “to do” list to tackle, but their plan of action is put into immediate jeopardy by unknown and unanticipated events and challenges. It is as if the BIM Manager's role and ability to execute his or her workload efficiently is always characterized by an undercurrent of unease and uncertainty.

The common state of flux highlights a fundamental issue for BIM Managers: BIM Management in daily practice very often combines a portion of strategic development and advancement with reactive support and fire-­fighting. One might argue that this is simply a matter of fact and BIM Managers ought to accept it and deal with it as best they can. There may be some truth to that, but at the same time there are mechanisms and strategies BIM Managers can apply to diminish how much of their time is spent on reactive and ad-hoc support. This kind of assistance is not problematic as such, but it can become highly disruptive to other, well-managed undertakings; it also takes over large portions of a BIM Manager's time. The solution to this problem often comes down to a clear articulation and distribution of responsibilities and associated time-management. It also comes down to being able to rely on a great team to assist with the daily workload. Subdividing BIM-related tasks is easier said than done: The range of deliverables BIM Managers are trusted with is usually ill-defined. With a lack of definition comes a lack of opportunity to manage these tasks, delegate parts of them to others, and get a grip of the time required to fulfill them.

BIM Management doesn't have to be an uphill battle; the key to success is proper planning and the alignment of BIM-related management activities with the overall business strategy of any organization. For that to happen, BIM Managers need to learn how to delegate, how to develop concise business plans, and “sell” those to their leadership for buy-in. As stated in ePart 2, “Change Management,” those overseeing the implementation of BIM are often not equipped with skills that would justify calling them “managers.” More likely they would have grown into this role one way or another (either via a vested interest in technology, or simply because they were able to cope well with BIM-related software). A first step to coping with day-by-day BIM Management therefore is to acknowledge that a structured approach to managing time, resources, and workload is essential.

The Broad Spectrum of BIM

There exists no “checklist for BIM Management,” and this is for a good reason: By now there are simply too many different activities associated with BIM Management across an entire spectrum of stakeholders. A single list would not apply to any given situation as different BIM Managers from different organizations and stakeholders throughout the supply chain have different priorities to deal with. What BIM Management means for any one individual must therefore refer to the fulfillment of their organization's core business, plus the facilitation of collaborative goals on a project.

Within their individual role, BIM Managers can clock up dozens of different tasks to fulfill. Many of those will be required on a day-to-day basis. It is still rather uncommon for BIM Managers to be presented with a concise role description at the outset of their employment (although some advanced BIM users have now established distinctive roles within their BIM Management team). With the ever-changing context of technology associated with BIM, roles and responsibilities are changing and upper management simply doesn't know what exactly to request from their BIM team. Most practices rely on their BIM Managers to work out and define their own area of responsibilities and the degree to which they support (and get supported by) the design or construction team, the leadership team, and the IT department. With the lack of a clear boundary about what their role entails, BIM Managers often struggle to understand where to start. The following list provides a structure to work toward by distinguishing between four major groups of tasks:

1. Strategic tasks for the advancement of BIM across the organization
2. Project-specific tasks that can be anticipated
3. Project-specific tasks that cannot be anticipated
4. Activities associated to their own learning and skill development

Day-to-day strategic BIM deliverables encompass setting up a BIM support team, whereby BIM Managers establish the line and frequency of reporting with others who collaborate closely on procuring BIM within a firm. Hand in hand with these tasks goes the definition of business cases and the communication to upper management. Strategic undertakings also involve Change Management (see ePart 2) development of back-of-house support such as BIM Standards and templates development (as detailed in ePart 4, “Building Up a BIM Support Infrastructure”), managing the BIM content library (including the search for and purchase of third-party ­content), programming/carrying out training, establishing an annual BIM and Design Technology budget, testing new tool releases, and interf...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• DAY-TO-DAY BIM MANAGEMENT
• EULA